A day riding the movies

“In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.” – Friedrich Nietzsche.

And this is exactly what we intended to do when we planned a day trip to Universal Studios, Singapore.

The Universal Studios is part of the Resort World Sentosa in Sentosa Island, which is easily commutable from the main island. We had been to Singapore with our parents and the Universal Studios was the best part of our four-day visit.

As we were all in the holiday mode, we started our day fairly late, and left from our hotel, Pan Pacific via taxi. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the Sentosa Island and as we anticipated the place was streaming with enthusiastic visitors. We decided to purchase express pass tickets, which is the best option as some of the rides have very long queues, but with the express pass you can easily reach to the front of the line in just a minute.

Snowy Christmas at Santa’s land being the theme of the festive season; the park was beautifully decorated with Christmas tress, wreaths, colorful gift boxes and various festive themed acts being performed around the park.

The park has 7 themes representing various scenarios from movies made by the Universal Studios: Hollywood, New York, Sci-Fi City, Ancient Egypt, Lost World, Far Far Away and Madagascar.

The Hollywood Boulevard

Walking through the HollywoodBoulevard area as we entered, we were greeted with the cutest act by the minions from the movie Despicable Me. Several souvenir shops and restaurants adorn this area along with the famous Walk of Fame. At the end of this glamorous street was the Santa Claus posing with little kids for photographs.

Next we made a stop at the New York theme, where you will find impressive structures, vintage cars, walk in diners all of these representing the famous city’s classic style. We tried the ride “Lights, Camera, Action” (a must try) by Steven Spielberg and the Spaghetti Chase. While Spaghetti Chase is a cute ride with the sesame street characters, Lights, Camera, action is a 5-minute show giving a glimpse of hurricane hitting the city with amazing special effects of fire, thunderstorms and rain. As much as we loved the show, we couldn’t help ourselves scream with shock when the water from the pool splashed all over us during the last scene as we were standing in the front of the line (blame it on our over eagerness on not to miss anything).

Sci-Fi CityUniversal Studio

Next is the supercool Sci-Fi City, which has the best rides in the park Transformers: Ultimate 3D battle, which takes you in a futuristic vehicle into the Transformers battlefield. The 3D effects are the best we have seen so far, as the vehicle takes you on a bumpy ride breaking inside the building, crashing vehicles, free-falling from skyscrapers etc., just making you wish the ride would never end.

There were two other rides in this zone: Accelerator a spinning ride, which we weren’t so keen on trying hence gave a miss and the giant roller coaster Battlestar Galactica (shutdown for technical reasons).

Ancient Egypt

Then comes the Ancient Egypt that has the two rides: The Revenge of the Mummy, an indoor rollercoaster, which is supposed to be the best and the Treasure hunters, a short ride in the safari jeep. The revenge of the Mummy was shutdown for the day due to technical failure hence we decided to take the jeep ride. The five-minute ride is more of a children thing but since we were pretending to be kids for the day joined the kiddie gang and tried the slow ride ;-).

The Treasure Hunters Jeep

View of the Park during the Treasure Hunters rideThe Lost WorldPicture courtesy: http://www.rwsentosa.com/language/en-US/Homepage/Attractions/UniversalStudiosSingapore

After a quick-lunch in the food court we entered the Lost World zone, where you will get a glimpse of the famous movie “The Jurassic Park”. The zone has mini rock climbing section; a Canopy Flyer ride and the tube boat ride adventure.The Canopy Flyer is another rollercoaster where you sit with the legs dangling in the air during the ride with several twists and turns. We loved the boat ride in the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure, which takes you through tropical jungle and then into a cave. As the description of the ride mentioned of getting soaked in the ride we bought rain coats from a stall inside (4 SGD) and we were totally happy with it as the boat makes a quick drop in the end splashing water all over you.

The sixth zone is the Far Far Away, where we enjoyed the Shrek 4-D Adventure showcasing the beautiful journey of Shrek and Princess Fiona with funny special effects like tickling spiders under your feet and sprinkling water on your face during the show.

Our last stop for the day was at Madagascar zone, another fun-filled activity area for kids. We went on the indoor river boat ride, Madagascar: A Crate Adventure, a fun ride with highlights on Madagascar movie characters and listening to the favorite song “I like to move it, move it” (and of course humming it much after you are done with the ride).

The Sentosa Merlion

Before leaving the Sentosa Island we decided to walk around the island and reached the legendary icon of Singapore, The Merlion. The 37 meter tall structure is one of the tallest Merlion statue in Singapore. You can take a tour inside the statue and reach on top of the Merlion head for 360-degree view of the Singapore City. You can also reach the mouth of the Merlion were you can again view the city from the legends prespective. Also do not forget to ring the prosperity bell and a make a wish for good fortune. Before we started our journey to the top we were lucky enough to collect the limited edition prosperity coins at the base. The entry to the Merlion costs 12 SGD.

View from the Merlion headProsperity bell

Getting back to the base we walked to the IMBIAH station where we caught a free Sentosa monorail ride to the Vivo city station in the main island. (The ride from Vivocity to Sentosa however costs 4 SGD).

After spending almost a day at USS, we would definitely suggest everyone to plan a trip to Universal Studio Singapore. The park is more inclined towards catering the young kids but it is also great place for a day out with the family. Even though USS isn’t a very large theme park, keeping the rides in mind it is suggestible to wear comfortable clothes and shoes.